Tag: Advent

One final point is worth noting about this part of the Creed:  There is a whole lifetime crammed into the space after “and became man.”  That’s because the Creed contains

One final corollary that goes with the Incarnation of the Son of God is this: the hallowing of images.  This is, again, not something most people think about.  However, it

The Incarnation is, of course, an incomprehensible miracle.  So in a certain sense we cannot say “how” it happened. But we can speak about certain wrong ways of understanding it. 

After the threat of Docetism faded in the first century, the same second century Gnostic sects who pitted the Son against the Father also pitted the physical world against the

As we recite the words “He was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man”) something happens in the liturgy that is worth noting.  On most days of the year

The Church has always encouraged the faithful to cultivate a loving and filial relationship with Mary.  Some Christians are fearful that doing so is a form of idolatry.  But there

The Catechism tells us: Mary is a virgin because her virginity is the sign of her faith “unadulterated by any doubt,” and of her undivided gift of herself to God’s

Some people have the notion the Virgin Birth was a sort of divine stunt meant to impress people about Jesus’ bona fides during his public ministry and get them to

At this point, the dogged skeptic might suggest that Joseph never existed and was invented by the apostles too.  But this is surely to multiply hypotheses to rescue an increasingly

Continuing our discussion of ancient rejections of the Virgin Birth, we note New Testament instances of this. For instance, in Mark 6:3, for instance, Jesus’ neighbors, incredulous that this common